Not for Putin

Why Yanukovych cannot become an authoritarian ruler

“Ukrainians will be ashamed of their choice, but it will be a democratic choice,” Viktor Yushchenko said finally. The inauguration of the new president, the leader of the Party of Regions, Viktor Yanukovych, should take place in March. The exact date is not determined, since the official results of the elections are not summed up, and the headquarters of Yulia Tymoshenko is going to challenge the results in 1200 polling stations. The New Times watched how Ukraine chose, and figured out what would happen next
The electoral preferences of the Ukrainians over the past after the “Orange Revolution” have almost not changed for five years. Viktor Yanukovych in the 2010 election actually repeated his results in 2004. “Orange” was then represented by Viktor Yushchenko. At first glance, its result is much better than that of Yulia Tymoshenko, who lost the 2010 election (see certificate on page 8). But it is worth considering that in the first round the voices of her “orange” comrades (Viktor Yushchenko and Arseny Yatsenyuk) were taken from Tymoshenko, and in the second round the candidate “against all”, who gained almost 5%.

Ukrainians discussed their choice violently. In the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, the New Times correspondent heard the conversation of young people: "Have you voted?" - "Yes, Masha - for Yanuk, I am for Julia." But most of the people of the Kiev did not vote “for”, but “against” - against either Yanukovych or Tymoshenko. “Of the two evils, select the smaller” - this phrase had to be heard more than a dozen times. In the building of the project institute, opposite the Central Election Commission, two members of the commission, sympathizing with different candidates, clashed in high colors: “Under your Tymoshenko, they plundered everything!” - "And your Yanukovych is a criminal!" - "But when he was the prime minister, GDP grew!"

* * In 2004, when Viktor Yanukovych was the Prime Minister, GDP really grew by 12%over a year. And when asked by The New Times, who will win, smiling, answered: "Freedom and democracy."

"Ukrainian lunch"
Disputes about whether Yulia Tymoshenko will be able to play in the second round at Viktor Yanukovych 10%, all the election days did not leave the stripes of Ukrainian newspapers. Skeptics said that 10% is too much. The prime minister’s supporters reminded that after the first round of the 1994 elections, Leonid Kravchuk went around Leonid Kuchma by 7.2%, and according to the results of the second, the current president lost almost 7.1%. In the latest European history, you can find examples of more powerful jerks: in 2003, the current President of Lithuania Valdas Adamkus initially confidently went around Rolandas Paxas as much as 15.5% of the vote, which did not save him from defeat in the second round.

Yulia Tymoshenko could not repeat the feat of Paxas, but she did almost the impossible - she lost to Yanukovych a little more than 3%.

"Permanent stagnation or chronic revolution?" - the magazine “Correspondent” in Ukraine asked from the cover of his readers immediately after the election. In the picture, Yulia Tymoshenko was depicted with a grenade in her hands, and Yanukovych in the image of Leonid Brezhnev with numerous stars of the “Hero of the Soviet Union” on his chest. Opponents of the leader of the Party of Regions from the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko scared Ukrainians by the fact that, with the advent of Yanukovych to power, he would spin nuts, hold freedom of speech, and the country will make a U -turn from Europe to Russia. At the same time, the design of Yanukovych, popular in the Russian media in the Russian media, is not seriously discussed in Kiev in Kyiv. “We have once taken freedom for ourselves, and if someone tries to take it away, we will leave and take it again,” the young man in a blue raincoat at the raincoat at the raincoat was browed. “The economic situation, of course, is not the same as in Russia, but we have freedom of speech, but you do not have.” “Yanukovych is too dependent on the financial and industrial clans inside his own party, and the large business as a whole and Rinat Akhmetov in particular are not at all interested in twisting the nuts,” said the interlocutor in the headquarters of Yanukovych himself. - We do not have your oil and gas resource; in the foreseeable future, we impossible the monopolism of one party in the Verkhovna Rada. Ukraine needs Western investments. A little time will pass, and you will understand that Yanukovych, maybe even a larger democrat and Westerner than Tymoshenko. ” Ukrainian journalists note that Yanukovych has changed a lot over the past five years, it added a shred and self -confidence. Yes, of course, he can still call Chekhov a “great Ukrainian poet”, but he almost does not make serious political mistakes. According to The Wall Street Journal, for five years of Yanukovych’s work with the American consultant Paul J. Manafort, the future president of Ukraine has changed a lot. The Washington Post, in turn, on the eve of the election noted that Yanukovych has removed the lessons from the “Orange Revolution” and now associates himself more likely with large Ukrainian industrialists than with Vladimir Putin. Throughout the campaign, the leader of the Party of Regions, mindful of his tongue -tied, carefully avoided open debate with Yulia Tymoshenko. He almost solved this problem, but once the opponents still collided, albeit in absentia: they both went live on television stations with the Swiss Davos. The program of the economic forum was also “Ukrainian lunch”, organized by businessman Vladimir Pinchuk. Unlike Tymoshenko, Yanukovych did not scatter promises to improve the investment climate in the country, looked confident and even relaxed, speaking against the background of Dneproges. Which, however, did not prevent the Ukrainian press from taking the future president from the forum once again laugh.

"Congratulate me"

Yanukovych was asked: to whom he will first call after the end of the elections, to which the candidate, smiling embarrassedly, replied that he hopes that this time he would be congratulated. “I have been waiting for this for five years so that someone calls me,” Yanukovych said, and the journalists immediately remembered how, following the results of the 2004 elections, Vladimir Putin congratulated him as much as he was an election and both times unsuccessfully.
On the night of the Yanukovych triumph, the former famous Russian television journalists, Savika Shuster and Evgeny Kiselev, were discussed on the two popular Tok Show. Now Schuster from a huge billboard is strictly considering not Muscovites, but Kievites, held on North-Systems Street. All six EXIT Pools spent on the voting day gave the victory to the leader of the Party of Regions with a gap of 3-6%. Their results and the first data from the sites on the night after the elections were discussed live on Schuster for 7 hours in a row. The guests were replaced one after another, coming and leaving. The assistants of the presenter cursed with someone on the phone, complaining that at the last moment Arseniy Yatsenyuk refused to go on the air. On television, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who had been enjoying the political process that was happening in Ukraine, was released on the television. According to Saakashvili, he has no problems either with Tymoshenko or Yanukovych, and Ukraine, under the new president, should become a “regional leader”. Saakashvili was listened to by deputies of Rada, representatives of candidates, deputy of the Russian State Duma Sergey Markov (he was an observer) and one of the leaders of opposition "solidarity" Boris Nemtsov, after the "Orange Revolution", the former adviser Yushchenko and Julia Tymoshenko on the Maidan, who stood with him. “In 2004, people had hope for changes, now there are no hopes, and the same persons have fed up with many,” Demets discussed during an advertising pause with The New Times, Tymoshenko, to challenge the results of voting with the help of another Maidan.
In the morning, the shelves of newspaper kiosks was decorated with the magazine Focus, parodying the famous statement of Louis XIV “The state is me/yu”.

"Ukrainians will be ashamed"

While the old leaders shared their voices, deciding to whom to be the main thing, and to whom to continue the struggle for political survival, the media discussed the next trick of the girls from the Femen movement - the main discovery of the last political season in Ukraine. The unification of young girls who arrange provocative actions trying to reach out to society and high politicians. Their main goal is the fight against prostitution. “23% of European prostitutes are Ukrainians,” says a beautiful blonde Sasha. Femen has achieved that now in the Verkhovna Rada the bill of administrative responsibility for customers of prostitutes is being considered (now only pimps are caught, who are finished with conditional terms, and customers seem to have nothing to do with it). Long before the elections on the air of the same Savik Shuster, the deputy from the Party of Regions Nestor Shufrich promised the girls to adopt the law within three days. The law was not adopted. Then Femen activists came to a talk show to Shuster without any invitation and beat the people's deputy Shufrich with posters with the inscription “Ukraine NOT BORD”. On the day of the second round of the presidential election, the girls from Femen appeared naked to the waist on the site, where Viktor Yanukovych was to vote, with posters “Do not sell your voice”. And this was the most striking event of voting day. On the ribbons of information agencies, they killed by the mention of even the outgoing President Viktor Yushchenko, who, voting against everyone, told reporters that "Ukrainians would be ashamed of their choice, but it will be a democratic choice." “Five years ago, we stood with everyone on the Maidan, left schools with whole classes, because we understood: we need to be there,” the girl from Femen told The New Times. “Now that enthusiasm was replaced by disappointment in politicians who do not keep their word.”

Yulia Tymoshenko voted, urged not to believe sociologists, lost and disappeared

The prime minister goes into the shadow

An even greater disappointment reigned all week after the elections in the head of Tymoshenko, who was located at the Hayatt hotel on Mikhailovskaya Square. About 800 journalists were accredited here, who wanted to report the triumph of the Orange Princess. But she lost. On the day and after the election, Tymoshenko only once flashed to the journalists, calling not to trust the results of Exit Pools. And the CEC did not comment on the official data - it just disappeared. The confused employees of her headquarters periodically announced the premiere’s press conferences and then reported their abolition as confused later. They avoided appearing at Hayightt and deputies from the BET faction. Only the future ambassador of Russia to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov looked into Hayult, but quickly retreated under the onslaught of journalists. Without going to the end of the procedure for taking office, he cannot yet give official comments.
But on the other side of the square, in the pompous atmosphere of the Intercontinental Hotel, supporters of Viktor Yanukovych noted the victory. Parties from the regions, reporting on the successes of their leader, were released on the screens, the pop stars, athletes, deputies of the Verkhovna Rada and the Russian State Duma walked. In the end, in the end, without waiting for any news in Hayatt, most of the press moved. Only on February 11, Tymoshenko finally appeared in public, opening the next meeting of the government. She was restrained, serious, but did not comment on the results of the vote count. And she did not congratulate her opponent on the victory.

New battles

BYUT has already transmitted documents to the CEC of Ukraine, demanding to recalculate votes in more than 1,200 sites, said the chief of staff and closest associate of Tymoshenko Alexander Turchinov. According to him, in Kerch, the headquarters of Tymoshenko has already managed to achieve the first recalculation of votes in the 20th polling station. “The data that are transferred to the CEC in this area give Yanukovych 8% more votes on this site than he actually received. This fact is documented, ”said the head of the prime minister headquarters. Indeed: “In many areas of Lugansk and Donetsk, the turnout was suspiciously high,” one of the Russian observers, who worked on the day of elections in Donetsk, told The New Times. “Among the violations, we revealed a classic carousel, again, buses full of people who were ready for unlimited will run from the site to the site.” After the court battles, Yanukovych will have a battle for the Cabinet of Ministers and the formation of a new ruling coalition in the Verkhovna Rada. To shift Yulia Tymoshenko from the post of prime minister, Yanukovych needs a majority in the Rada. And he has no trace of the chosen president. Yanukovych urged Tymoshenko to voluntarily resign. Tymoshenko answered with the same silence. In the Rada, options for creating a new coalition are calculated with might and main, but the prospects of this project are very vague. It is possible that Ukraine is waiting for Ukraine in May 2010 early parliamentary elections.